A multi-billion dollar iron ore deal involving lifetime dictators and a system of power through patronage makes for a toxic mix that is bad for the people of Gabon, writes Khadija Sharife.

Gabon’s Ba’aka pygmy population may soon be saying au revoir to smoked fish and nihao to tofu, if the $3.5 billion Belinga iron-ore mining deal, awarded to a Chinese consortium in 2006, goes off without a hitch. The ore, billed as one of the world’s last remaining major untapped deposits, was first discovered in 1885 in a remote forested region located in the Ogooue-Ivindo province, and is estimated to hold one billion tons of ore with iron content of 64 per cent … //

… But profits from finite resources are largely derived from taxes – including mineral tax (royalties), and corporate tax, via region-specific resources. Meanwhile, the proposed 26,850 jobs appear unlikely to materialise as China’s leitmotif is generally to export Chinese labour, save that of mining. Transmission lines, supplying power to end destinations, often amount to half the project’s costs, bypassing populations in favour of mining facilities. Continue Reading…

In the wake of the ousting of entrenched Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, Horace Campbell reflects on events in the country, regional implications and the inspirational example of the Tunisian people in organising for a new future … //

In the wake of the ousting of entrenched Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, Horace Campbell reflects on events in the country, regional implications and the inspirational example of the Tunisian people in organising for a new future.

The full explosion of the Tunisian revolutionary process is now taking root across Africa, far beyond the town of Sidi Bouzid, from where Mohammed Bouazizi had sent a message to youths all across the world that they should stand up against oppression. The overthrow and removal of the dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali on 14 January 2011 was an important stage in this revolution. Continue Reading…

Agricultural investors have a major conference to look forward to in just a few months in Chicago. Let me introduce you to FC Business Intelligence and the World Agriculture Investment Conference 2011. Debate will focus on:

How to take advantage of private equity investment in the full agriculture supply chain

Proven techniques for sourcing top operators

Understand how agriculture fits within investor portfolios

Identify the best agriculture opportunities from across the Americas and beyond

Two years ago, when I first spoke before this Committee to present my programme of work, I indicated that I would address the relationship of security of land tenure and access to land to the right to adequate food (A/63/278, paras. 33-37; see also A/57/356, paras. 24 and 30) … //

… The overall picture that emerges from this empirical evidence is impressive. What we are witnessing is a situation in which pressures on land and water are increasing at an unprecedented speed. Each year, up to 30 million hectares of farmland are lost due to environmental degradation, conversion to industrial use or urbanization. Continue Reading…

… For nearly 17 years, migrants from all parts of the world have been flocking to South Africa, bringing with them their cultural practices. Some of these practices have long died out in South Africa because it violates the dignity and human rights of women and children. A VOC investigation found that one such practice is Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), which is secretly taking place in some migrant communities in South Africa.

(Editor’s Note: The arrival of Chinese President Hu in Washington had the feel of a banker showing up at a struggling business where the owners pray for more financial help but fear the banker might notice how desperate things look and pull the loan.
With China now one of America’s top creditors, Hu’s hosts hope he will decide to keep buying Treasury bills and to give a boost to the U.S. economy — rather than go away thinking the American economic/political model is in rapid decline, a concern that Danny Schechter addresses in this guest essay):

On the eve of the Chinese President’s visit to the United States, and the intense speculation about his intentions — and ours — I found myself in a dark room at the Anthology Film Archive in the East Village watching a spectacular documentary by Chinese filmmaker Zhao Liang called “Petition.”

It’s about the tens of thousands of people with grievances who seek redress in China at offices ostensibly set up to resolve their problems. The right to petition is guaranteed by the Chinese Constitution — yes, China has a Constitution, but it is unevenly enforced like our own. Falun Gong first tried, but failed, to bring its human rights claims to a Petition office like the bureaucratic centers shown in the film as do a small army of individuals who every day, bravely — sometimes fanatically — insist it is their human right to be heard. Continue Reading…

The World Health Organization has re-iterated its call to Member States in the African Region to eliminate Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), often referred to as female circumcision.”

The practice – still prevalent in at least 27 African countries – comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injures to the female genital organs whether for cultural, religious or other non-therapeutic reasons. Continue Reading…

Published on Pambazuka News, by Published on Pambazuka News, January 13, 2011.

As Côte d’Ivoire remains in a troubling state of political deadlock, Horace Campbell discusses the increasing militarisation of politics, the history of external interests in the country and broader conditions behind the contested 2010 election.

On October 31, 2010 the peoples of Cote d’Ivoire voted in the Presidential elections that had been postponed for five years. The results of this electoral contest showed that Laurent Gbagbo, the intellectual turned trade unionist and politician won the first round with about 35 percent of votes cast. Two other opposition leaders were runners up. Alassane Ouattara, the leader of the Rally of Republicans (RDR) and former Prime Minister, captured 32 percent of the votes cast. Ex-president Henri Konan Bedie, leader of the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), was in third place with about 25 percent. Because no candidate received an absolute majority of votes in the first round, a second round was held on November 28. When this second round of voting took place, Henri Bedie threw his electoral support behind Outtara and so the Presidential candidate of the RDR emerged the winner and was declared as such by the Independent Electoral Commission of Cote d’Ivoire … //

Published on Pambazuka News, by Alemayehu G. Mariam, January 19, 2011.

As South Sudan continues with its referendum, Alemayehu G. Mariam considers what will happen following the south’s probable independence, the longer-term consequences for Sudan and the wider significance for Africa’s direction in the 21st century … //

… In 2009, in Accra, Ghana, President Obama blasted identity politics as a canker in the African body politic:

We all have many identities – of tribe and ethnicity; of religion and nationality. But defining oneself in opposition to someone who belongs to a different tribe, or who worships a different prophet, has no place in the 21st century…. In my father’s life, it was partly tribalism and patronage in an independent Kenya that for a long stretch derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is a daily fact of life for far too many. Continue Reading…

‘The violence in Congo may seem unintelligible but its roots lie in institutional practices introduced under colonialism, which 50 years of independence have only exacerbated,’ writes Mahmood Mamdani.

For the institutions that claim to represent ‘the international community’ – the Western press, international NGOs and UN agencies – the armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been a paradigm of senseless violence. The number of casualties is indeed staggering. In 2001, the New-York-based International Rescue Committee started providing estimates of war-related deaths since the conflict began in 1998: they rose from 1.7 million in 2001 to 5.4 million in January 2008. If correct, these figures account for about 8 per cent of the current population of the country. They were called into question in 2008, however, when two Belgian demographers concluded that the excess death toll between 1998 and 2004 was in the order of 200,000 – one-twentieth of the IRC’s estimate for the same period, but still a shocking number of victims. Continue Reading…

Although it is widely known that FGM can have devastating and harmful consequences for a woman throughout her life, because most communities practising it are very poor and do not have access to modern health facilities, medical emergencies arising from FGM are common, and often lead to death.

Post-election Cote d’Ivoire, Sudan’s referendum, public demonstrations in Tunisia and the nature of poverty in Haiti feature in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere, by Dibussi Tande. The African Blog laments about the continued failure of the democratic process and elections in Africa:

‘We have seen elections in Zimbabwe and Kenya that have produced no winner or loser, giving these two terms their literal meaning. Laurent Gbagbo is currently trying his luck in Cote d’Ivoire, and why not? … //

… The Chia Report: Julius Fondong, a former UN Civil Affairs Officer in Haiti and The Chia Report, contributor writes about the Haiti that the media never tells us about: Continue Reading…

Received by e-mail, From: MADRE / Stephanie Küng, MADRE (212) 627-0444, and Annie Gell, BAI Port-au-Prince, Haiti +509-3610-2882.First my comment: damned … is there nobody able and willing to educate the males of this population?!?

January 10, 2011-New York, NY- Today, MADRE, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) and the IWHR Clinic of CUNY School of Law released a report on sexual violence in Haiti one year after the earthquake, entitled Our Bodies Are Still Trembling: Haitian Women Continue to Fight Against Rape.

The catastrophic January 12, 2010 earthquake took the lives of some 200,000 people and left approximately 1.5 million Haitians homeless. Forced to live in overcrowded displacement camps without adequate lighting or security, women and girls have faced an epidemic of sexual violence. Despite tireless efforts by Haitian women in the camps, incidents of rape continue to rise. Continue Reading…

With the Sudanese referendum this week, Nnimmo Bassey looks back at Nigeria’s civil war in 1967, what is at stake for South Sudan and the role of oil in the region.

As Sudanese vote this week on staying as one nation or becoming two, my mind goes back to when civil war broke out in Nigeria in 1967. I recall that when Biafra was announced, I leapt in celebration at the novelty of suddenly being a citizen of a new country under a new flag and with a bearded man at the head of state. What my young mind could not fathom, and did not question, were the reasons for the emergence of the new nation. What were the announced reasons and what were the unspoken ones? … // Continue Reading…

GRAIN is pleased to announce that, starting today, the specialised website farmlandgrab.org – food crisis and the global land grab is fully trilingual. People who speak French or Spanish can now navigate the site in either language and be presented with materials strictly in that language. English readers can continue to navigate in the site in English and have access to all language materials at once. The purpose of this shift is to facilitate better access to information and analysis about the current explosion of landgrabbing to small farmers’ organisations, women’s groups, human rights defenders and others grassroots activists across francophone Africa and Latin America. Continue Reading…

(WMR) – There were a number of women who, during the eight years of the Bush regime, exemplified the spirit of this nation’s founding mothers and sisters. Women like the FBI’s Coleen Rowley and Sibel Edmonds; Enron’s Sharon Watkins; the Army Corps of Engineer’s Bunnatine Greenhouse; J.P. Morgan risk analyst Indira Singh; long-serving White House correspondent Helen Thomas; Karl Rove’s former research specialist Dana Jill Simpson; the CIA’s Valerie Plame Wilson; former U.S. Park Police chief Teresa Chambers; retired Army Colonel Ann Wright; retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski; Susan Lindauer, the CIA’s back-channel to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein; and, especially, this editor’s extraordinary girlfriend, a former National Security Agency (NSA) analyst, all of whom put the interests of the nation, its Constitution, and ethics above personal ambitions, fearlessly spoke about what was wrong, and did what was right. Add former British GCHQ analyst Katharine Gun, who proved what an ally should be. Continue Reading…

Participants in the Revisiting Associative Democracy seminar organized last October by Andrea Westall and Stuart White in London’s Coin Street Community Centre were invited to read this usefully condensed account of Paul Hirst’s normative political theory, published in 2002.

Associative democracy is a normative political theory. Its core propositions are as follows: Continue Reading…

In an interview with Susanne Brunner, Ruedi Küng looks back on his years as Swiss Radio DRS’s executive correspondent for Africa. – Published on Current Concerns, december 2010.

… Was it sometimes difficult to see the desperate poverty and consequently to have the impulse to help?

Ok, regarding the impulse to help: I may have a quite strange attiutde. I believe that all this helping business, if I may say so, is something very problematic. Certain friends of mine don’t like to hear that at all when I talk like this, because it simply creates immediately an inequality in the relationship. There is no helper who can be equal to the one who is being helped. For me it’s easy to say this, because I haven’t done anything. I’ve never received a laurel wreath for having done a helping job. Therefore, I mentioned the word profit before: I was able to experience relationships from equal person to another equal person, and the people noticed that. I also didn’t expect anything from them. I never wanted anything except talking to them, having an encounter. Continue Reading…

… By way of conclusion, a couple of remarks are in order. The first is to note that the left has routinely made much of its own censorship at the hands of the mainstream news media acting in service to an elite agenda. In this instance, it has shown that it has no compunction about using the same tools to squelch legitimate questions with respect to its own de facto elites. Being on the receiving end of it, along with more than a few derogatory and condescending remarks from left luminaries, who were, it should be noted, addressed respectfully and politely in the open letter, has been eye-opening though not altogether pleasant. Continue Reading…

Things keep falling apart in Africa because over the past one-half century of independence it has been nearly impossible to hold Africa’s so-called leaders accountable. For fifty years, African “leaders” have been telling Africans and the world that Africa’s problems are all externally caused. Africa is what it is (or is not) because of its colonial legacy. It is the white man. It is imperialism. It is capitalism. It is the International Monetary Fund. Continue Reading…

In the UK, it is estimated that up to 24,000 girls under the age of 15 are at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM). Across government work is taking place to tackle this cruel and brutal practice. You can find information here about FGM and also advice on what to do if you are worried that you or someone you know is at risk.

Girls are at particular risk of FGM during school summer holidays. This is the time when families may take their children abroad for the procedure. Many girls may not be aware that they may be at risk of undergoing FGM. Continue Reading…

… What is Switzerland doing about that mismanagement?
In contrast to other countries in the industrial world, Switzerland has not cut the finances spent on agriculture in developing countries. Last year, around 200 millions of Swiss francs have been invested in order to assure and improve food security. There was a comprehensive contribution to a globally sustainable development. Here are some examples: Continue Reading…

… BOBO-DIALOUSSO, BURKINA FASO // Africa’s first clinic designated for the reconstruction of female genitalia will open in Bobo-Dialousso this year. The clinic will offer free reconstructive surgery to women from across West Africa.

About 70 per cent of Burkina Faso’s seven million women are victims of female genital mutilation (FGM), a deep-rooted practice in West Africa. The ritual, common in a stretch between Senegal and Benin, can cause complications such as serious infections, excessive bleeding and stillbirths.

Mariam Banemanie, the director of Voices of Women, a Burkinabé non-governmental organisation that is paying for the clinic with Clitoraid, an NGO based in Las Vegas, said about 90 per cent of Burkinabé women in their 20s feel no sexual sensation. “Currently reconstruction is only available in the capital for a fee upwards of 160,000 CFA [Dh1,200]. Continue Reading…

Life changed for Shawn Eisch with a phone call last January. His youngest brother, Brian, a soldier and single father, had just received orders to deploy from Fort Drum, N.Y., to Afghanistan and was mulling who might take his two boys for a year. Shawn volunteered … //

… While directing fire from his armored truck, Sergeant Eisch saw a rocket-propelled grenade explode among a group of police officers standing in a field. The Afghans scattered, leaving behind a man writhing in pain. Sergeant Eisch ordered his medic to move their truck alongside the officer to shield him from gunfire. Then Sergeant Eisch got out. Continue Reading…

World Socialist Web Site reporters visited Tirupur—a garment manufacturing boom town in south India—to investigate the conditions that led close to a thousand garment workers their spouses or children to commit suicide in the two years ending in September 2010 … //

… We also learned about the circumstances that led another 27 year-old garment worker, Selvam, to take his life. Selvam fractured his hand in an accident. When he was healed, his employer refused to take him back and he was unable to find another job. Without income, his marriage disintegrated and he became separated from his wife, six year-old daughter and infant son. Soon after Selvam took his life. Continue Reading…

… 2006 international conference: TARGET, a German human rights group, sponsored a conference on FGM in Cairo, Egypt. Muslim scholars from many nations attended. At the conclusion of the conference on 2006-NOV-24, their final statement declared FGM to be contrary to Islam, an attack on women, and a practice that should be criminalized:

The conference appeals to all Muslims to stop practicing this habit, according to Islam’s teachings which prohibit inflicting harm on any human being. … The conference reminds all teaching and media institutions of their role to explain to the people the harmful effects of this habit in order to eliminate it. … The conference calls on judicial institutions to issue laws that prohibit and criminalize this habit … which appeared in several societies and was adopted by some Muslims although it is not sanctioned by the Qur’an or the Sunna. Continue Reading…